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I think Tremeres who would face the Garou would develop fairly mundane skills - silver-craft, weapons usage, military tactics, survival - to supplement their Thaumaturgy. A Kindred silversmith could equip others - including Ghouls - with silver weapons.

Silversmithing could be something that they manage to practice fairly easily, but developing military skills requires a military training facility, which is costly and time-consuming to either acquire or set up and staff.

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Silversmithing could be something that they manage to practice fairly easily, but developing military skills requires a military training facility, which is costly and time-consuming to either acquire or set up and staff.

Depends on how much training you need and how quickly you need to get it. You don't necessarily need to turn the chantry into Navy Seals. Embracing one or two people with the necessary knowledge (I prefer embracing to ghouling in this scenario because it gives them the perspective and incentive to adapt their training to Kindred needs) and training in improvised conditions won't make you a crack team of disciplined fighters and survivalists, but it can give you an edge you didn't have before. Dealing with werewolves any edge you can get matters.

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I think Tremeres who would face the Garou would develop fairly mundane skills - silver-craft, weapons usage, military tactics, survival - to supplement their Thaumaturgy. A Kindred silversmith could equip others - including Ghouls - with silver weapons.

Silver smithing and Crafting SIlver weapons are probably two different skills. This isn't to say its not a good idea but your average person working with silver really isn't going to be good at making weapons since they have no idea how to make weapons AND silver's pretty not good for this.

This doesn't mean if your Vampire is having a serious Lupine issue and moving isn't an option then yeah building up the skills at this is going to be a priority. But you're probably going to want to start with people who do make stuff that's meant to be used as a weapon than people who are silver smiths. There's a lot of people on Youtube who play around with custom machining of bullets, which is probably what you want.

Of course a wax slug with silver pellets might do the job, but trial and error!. Good thing you can make mroe ghouls.

Of course dragonsbreath rounds also fuck up Lupines and would be just as good if say Sabbat show up and don't have to deal with the price of silver going up.

I don't throw this out there as a statement on why this shouldn't be done but rather the sort of points that should come up getting there.

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Then you don't understand the intention. They need to be scarrier to engage in than a sabbat Seige. That is the intent. That every bit of crazy shit the sabbat throws at you is better than cutting through Lupine territory. Bloodlines has it perfect. That doesn't have an ounce of W:TA lore thrown in, they are just a scary thing you can't really engage in combat.

I have been playing Vampire since 1991 and Werewolf since 1992. I understand the intention. I disagree with the fucking intention. Don't patronize me. One of the reasons I disagree with the intention is that in this thread I've been watching y'all wax poetic about how powerful werewolves are.

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In my opinion Lupines should be less powerful but more numerous than Garou (perhaps with "cursed bite" to reproduce as fast as needed). This way they would make a better deterrent to Kindred travel ( as things are now you need to have a lot of bad luck to randomly find one in the wood/road) and they would be easier to introduce as antagonists (antagonists to punch).

In fact, I think all the lines should do as Hunter does, and have "antagonist books" that depicted the "others" using rules balanced to be used with that game line, including ways to actually play with the "others" using those rules.

Indeed. Since Lupines don't need to have anything at all to do with Garou, you pretty much do what you want with them and still have them work. The Umbra is unnecessary, the limited numbers are unnecessary (and in fact the limited numbers make the whole "Garou will get you if you leave the cities" line completely unenforceable).

I don't really agree that the best thing to do with lupines is to treat them as an environmental hazard like sunlight. I think that's a terrible approach. Treat them as monsters the PCs might have to fight on occasion, and don't give them a stack of "I win" buttons.

The vampires already have a huge reason to stay in the cities in terms of feeding. Leaving the city means possibly not being able to feed.

I also dislike the idea that say that a Kindred just can't travel from Portland to Seattle ever.

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Silver smithing and Crafting SIlver weapons are probably two different skills. This isn't to say its not a good idea but your average person working with silver really isn't going to be good at making weapons since they have no idea how to make weapons AND silver's pretty not good for this.

This doesn't mean if your Vampire is having a serious Lupine issue and moving isn't an option then yeah building up the skills at this is going to be a priority. But you're probably going to want to start with people who do make stuff that's meant to be used as a weapon than people who are silver smiths. There's a lot of people on Youtube who play around with custom machining of bullets, which is probably what you want.

Of course a wax slug with silver pellets might do the job, but trial and error!. Good thing you can make mroe ghouls.

Of course dragonsbreath rounds also fuck up Lupines and would be just as good if say Sabbat show up and don't have to deal with the price of silver going up.

I don't throw this out there as a statement on why this shouldn't be done but rather the sort of points that should come up getting there.

​I agree that there is a learning curve, but I wouldn't say that we are talking about different skills entirely.

​For instance if we are just discussing converting regular silver into weapons without the use of magic, then you can teach a child to do the basic steps in less than a day. As far as equipment goes, about 90% of what you will need is available from places like Amazon.com without the need for paperwork or licenses.

​For ammunition, all you need is a small smelter, a bullet mold, ammo press, bag of empty shells, gunpowder, and a bag of primers. Beyond removing any flashing from the bullets and being careful when handling the gun powder and primers, you don't have a full skill set to learn. Silver Smithing in the modern world has more to do with jewelry making and producing pretty things than it does making functional things.

​To be fair though silver bullets have horrible accuracy due to the fact that silver is harder than lead or most bullet materials. This means when a gun is fired, the bullet doesn't deform in the barrel slightly to hug the grooves. This in turn means that the bullet ricochets down the barrel rather than getting a good spin to improve accuracy.

​A better method for using silver in guns is to pack silver loads into shotgun shells. Since shotguns are smooth bore weapons, the relative hardness or softness of the ammo material doesn't come into play. This means the skill set threshold is greatly reduced. Rather than carefully pouring molten silver into bullet molds, making sure none of them have any defects and then loading them into cartridges, you can just pour molten silver into a bucket of water. The resulting globules are basically instant silver buckshot. You just scoop out the new shot and put it into a empty shotgun shell, and then put it through a shell press. Its a simple process that a ghoul or two can do in their daylight down time. With that in mind, a given chantry can end up with thousands if not tens of thousands of silver rounds stored up.

The real skill set to make the most of silver as a weapon is essentially general contractor skills. Casting silver ingots into silver spikes is easy, building a punji pit lined with silver spikes into the chantry and disguising it properly, now that takes some skills. Silver plating a ram bumper is easy, you just cast solid silver sections and then bolt them to an existing ram bar. Making sure the bumper system won't fall off the vehicle when running into lupines actually takes technical skills and knowledge.

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Depends on how much training you need and how quickly you need to get it. You don't necessarily need to turn the chantry into Navy Seals.

Except that various organizations do train their operatives to this level and beyond and still have discouraging turnover rates. You're going to need Dead Man's Hand-level of training combined with vampire powers if you actually want to stack the deck, because the werewolves will certainly be learning from their veterans as often as they can manage.

Embracing one or two people with the necessary knowledge (I prefer embracing to ghouling in this scenario because it gives them the perspective and incentive to adapt their training to Kindred needs) and training in improvised conditions won't make you a crack team of disciplined fighters and survivalists, but it can give you an edge you didn't have before. Dealing with werewolves any edge you can get matters.

Unfortunately, it would also freeze the perspective of the instructors in question. That will come back to bite you sooner than later, since things are likely going to change very quickly and very abruptly whenever the werewolves can make them change.

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I have been playing Vampire since 1991 and Werewolf since 1992. I understand the intention. I disagree with the fucking intention. Don't patronize me. One of the reasons I disagree with the intention is that in this thread I've been watching y'all wax poetic about how powerful werewolves are.

I can wax poetically about how powerful the sun is too. WIll that make you drop it doing damage to kindred? How about the power of the Beast? Are you going to drop humanity/paths? How about Elders being blood gods? Going to drop Generation?

IF you think Lupines is something that can be casually solved by violence means pcs are going to casually solve them.

I can wax poetically about Vampires scaring the shit out of Garou too, about turning everyone against them. About showing the complete impotency of Violence in the face of the power of sublety The narrative purpose of engagement with other game shit is to be an out of context problem that scares that shit out of you, not some sort of "balance" system.

IF you think Lupines is something that can be casually solved by violence means pcs are going to casually solve them.

I can wax poetically about Vampires scaring the shit out of Garou too, about turning everyone against them. About showing the complete impotency of Violence in the face of the power of sublety The narrative purpose of engagement with other game shit is to be an out of context problem that scares that shit out of you, not some sort of "balance" system.

The interesting thing is that no one waxes poetically about anything in the WoD the way they wax poetically about how powerful werewolves are. It's actually really off-putting and makes me seriously question the design decision to make werewolves so significantly more powerful than Kindred in combat, because it contributes to a dynamic that is omnipresent on this forum and other White Wolf discussion venues over the past 26 years that I find to be really negative.

Also, if you want to convince me otherwise, you need a significantly more convincing argument than either of "You don't understand Vampire" or "If I wax poetic about something else will that annoy you too?" Both of these are ridiculous arguments that do nothing more than demonstrate your position is incredibly weak. It's no better than arguing werewolves should be stronger because they are stronger.

And yes, I do in fact want Lupines to be something that Kindred can casually solve with violence. What exactly is the problem with that? I think the idea that werewolves are an implacable environmental hazard is remarkably stupid. Garou don't have the kind of numbers to dedicate to heavily patrolling the city limits for Kindred driving out of town. It doesn't make any sense. They have better things to do with their time.

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Silversmithing could be something that they manage to practice fairly easily, but developing military skills requires a military training facility, which is costly and time-consuming to either acquire or set up and staff.

One could read up military tactics, and other related, books ; and train using what could be called specially designed and adapted board games. Garou Lore would be needed to simulate them truthfully.

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To build a Chantry? Are they close to abundant blood sources?, because otherwise It may be better to just buy a sturdy house and fill it with Wards and cellars. You're going to want Wards no matter what because they can offer protection against threats that may not be impaired by mundane tech, like spirits or incorporeal vampires.

Tremere have a capacity to harvest, preserve, store, and transport food unparalleled by anyone except Assamite sorcerers and maybe the Nagaraja. Tremere, like other clans, don't need to be near an abundant food source. That's making the (unduly charitable to your argument) assumption they don't have heavily conditioned ghouls on-site for fresh blood.

Nobody questions why or how Alamut is in the middle of bumfuck nowhere stuck on the side of a mountain, and how Assamite get their food. Hell, the same argument applies for Ceoris.

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The interesting thing is that no one waxes poetically about anything in the WoD the way they wax poetically about how powerful werewolves are.

Ask in the general setup who's the most powerful starting PC. I'm doubting you won't see plenty of people say Mage, Mummy or Demon. I don't see why different gamelines need to have some sort of "balance" across them. You are no more expected to play a werewolf in a vampire game than a Dragon in your average D&D party. That Council of WYrms existed doesn't mean the expectations changed.

It's actually really off-putting and makes me seriously question the design decision to make werewolves so significantly more powerful than Kindred in combat, because it contributes to a dynamic that is omnipresent on this forum and other White Wolf discussion venues over the past 26 years that I find to be really negative.

Also, if you want to convince me otherwise, you need a significantly more convincing argument than either of "You don't understand Vampire" or "If I wax poetic about something else will that annoy you too?" Both of these are ridiculous arguments that do nothing more than demonstrate your position is incredibly weak. It's no better than arguing werewolves should be stronger because they are stronger.

Werewolves being stronger than Kindred is a setting conceit, its an arbitrary choice like sunlight, generation, humanity, clans, disciplines etc. There are people who run without morality systems to get a more action driven game. There are people who run games with different clans in different setups.

However those are different settings. I am more than down with a setting conceit doesn't work for my group I'm going to do X. Makes sense to me. Your argument however isn't that. Its "People on the internet are saying how awesome werewolves are" which comes off to me "so what?" so what that the powerlevels aren't fair. So what? If you saw twenty six years of people saying how Vampires should be able to do anything casually an easily with infinite resources like say the whole "Fake chantry" argument on this thread would that make you sick of Vampires? Because I'm damned sure I could easily find just as many people explaining why their favorite group should win all the time forever and ever.

and I am not even saying that when engaging in stuff outside one's Gameline. But rather engagment with Lupines or whatever should be rare since you're playing VAMPIRE not "Generic WOD game" but if you want to play generic WOD game where everything interacts more readily you're going to have to do some work. Hell a WOD Being Human type game might be neat but its a different game than on the tin.

And yes, I do in fact want Lupines to be something that Kindred can casually solve with violence. What exactly is the problem with that? I think the idea that werewolves are an implacable environmental hazard is remarkably stupid. Garou don't have the kind of numbers to dedicate to heavily patrolling the city limits for Kindred driving out of town. It doesn't make any sense. They have better things to do with their time.

If you want to play underworld the game. That's your perogative. However you seem to keep switching between between "One world of Darkness' and "Lupines aren't Garou' I am purely arguing the narrative purpose of Lupines in Vampire. They are meant to be an implacable force of nature. Mages and Faries as a what the fuck Fiat encounter. IN a vampire game I priortize the idea that Werewolf terrority is something you don't cut through. They don't go off and randomly attack things unless someone does something stupid. They are generally scarier to fight than anything Sabbat so if you do things like "Trick the Lupines into killing the Sabbat seige"

I go again and again back to Bloodlines where combat is kind of really bad idea but coming up with a really cunning out of the box thing is how you do it since I want there to be scary things you can't just engage normal combat with along with things you can just engage normal combat in.

However a game which is more Underworld where Lupines take up the role of the Sabbat vs a more united Kindred society could be really interesting, but if i want Lupines that are more something you can fight then I want the more front in center of the game than something off to the side as a one shot encounter. They become as key as church hunters, the Sabbat etc. IT seems like its ALOT of effort to make the Lupines you want it would be just easier to run a game where they weren't around.